TheChurchMilitant

"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Just say no to the Sacred Cow, kiddies!How did a redneck left-fascist and his ignorant shrew of a wife become multi-millionaires by starting a charitable [only 15% of the funds they raise go to actual charitable causes, BTW] foundation? Here are three long-overdue stories about bribery, influence peddling, and treason that should give you a clue.

The
headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup,
its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as
the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers
the World.”

The
article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy
agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining
stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made
Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr.
Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium
supply chain.

But
the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the
Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who
would like to be the next one.

At
the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining
industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of
former President Bill Clinton
and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually
sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium
One.

Beyond
mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the
sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production
capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic
asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be
approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of
United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually
signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As
the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate
transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash
made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his
family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those
contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an
agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly
identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made
donations as well.

And
shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a
majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a
Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin
that was promoting Uranium One stock.

At
the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises
intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets
to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records
show.

The
New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens
of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities
filings in Canada, Russia
and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and
the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former
fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.”
Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times,
which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own
reporting.

Whether
the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is
unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges
presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who
relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even
as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state,
presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s
donors.

In
a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential
campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting
the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state
to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He
emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian
government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such
matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the
State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence
in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly
baseless,” he added.

American
political campaigns are barred from accepting foreign donations. But
foreigners may give to foundations in the United States. In the days
since Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy
for president, the Clinton Foundation has announced changes meant to
quell longstanding concerns about potential conflicts of interest in
such donations; it has limited donations from foreign governments, with
many, like Russia’s, barred from giving to all but its health care
initiatives. That policy stops short of Mrs. Clinton’s agreement with
the Obama administration, which prohibited all foreign government
donations while she served as the nation’s top diplomat.

Either
way, the Uranium One deal highlights the limits of such prohibitions.
The foundation will continue to accept contributions from foreign
individuals and businesses whose interests, like Uranium One’s, may
overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds
with the United States.

When
the Uranium One deal was approved, the geopolitical backdrop was far
different from today’s. The Obama administration was seeking to “reset”
strained relations with Russia. The deal was strategically important to
Mr. Putin, who shortly after the Americans gave their blessing sat down
for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko.
“Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of
U.S. reserves,” Mr. Kiriyenko told Mr. Putin.

Now,
after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, the
Moscow-Washington relationship is devolving toward Cold War levels, a
point several experts made in evaluating a deal so beneficial to Mr.
Putin, a man known to use energy resources to project power around the
world.

“Should
we be concerned? Absolutely,” said Michael McFaul, who served under
Mrs. Clinton as the American ambassador to Russia but said he had been
unaware of the Uranium One deal until asked about it. “Do we want Putin
to have a monopoly on this? Of course we don’t. We don’t want to be
dependent on Putin for anything in this climate.”

The path to a Russian acquisition of American uranium deposits began in
2005 in Kazakhstan, where the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra
orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side.

The
two men had flown aboard Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Almaty,
Kazakhstan, where they dined with the authoritarian president, Nursultan
A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton handed the Kazakh president a propaganda
coup when he expressed support for Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid to head an
international elections monitoring group, undercutting American foreign
policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among
others, his wife, then a senator.

Within
days of the visit, Mr. Giustra’s fledgling company, UrAsia Energy Ltd.,
signed a preliminary deal giving it stakes in three uranium mines
controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.

If
the Kazakh deal was a major victory, UrAsia did not wait long before
resuming the hunt. In 2007, it merged with Uranium One, a South African
company with assets in Africa and Australia, in what was described as a
$3.5 billion transaction. The new company, which kept the Uranium One
name, was controlled by UrAsia investors including Ian Telfer, a
Canadian who became chairman. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Giustra, whose
personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million, said he
sold his stake in 2007.

Soon,
Uranium One began to snap up mining companies with assets in the United
States. In April 2007, it announced the purchase of a uranium mill in
Utah and more than 38,000 acres of uranium exploration properties in
four Western states, followed quickly by the acquisition of the Energy
Metals Corporation and its uranium holdings in Wyoming, Texas and Utah.
That deal made clear that Uranium One was intent on becoming “a
powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to
become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” the company
declared.

Still,
the company’s story was hardly front-page news in the United States —
until early 2008, in the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential
campaign, when The Times published an article revealing the 2005 trip’s
link to Mr. Giustra’s Kazakhstan mining deal. It also reported that
several months later, Mr. Giustra had donated $31.3 million to Mr. Clinton’s foundation.

Though
the article quoted the former head of Kazatomprom, Moukhtar Dzhakishev,
as saying that the deal required government approval and was discussed
at a dinner with the president, Mr. Giustra insisted that it was a
private transaction, with no need for Mr. Clinton’s influence with
Kazakh officials. He described his relationship with the former American
president as motivated solely by a shared interest in philanthropy.

As
if to underscore the point, five months later Mr. Giustra held a
fund-raiser for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a
project aimed at fostering progressive environmental and labor practices
in the natural resources industry, to which he had pledged $100
million. The star-studded gala, at a conference center in Toronto,
featured performances by Elton John and Shakira and celebrities like Tom
Cruise, John Travolta and Robin Williams encouraging contributions from
the many so-called F.O.F.s — Friends of Frank — in attendance, among
them Mr. Telfer. In all, the evening generated $16 million in pledges,
according to an article in The Globe and Mail.

"None
of this would have been possible if Frank Giustra didn’t have a
remarkable combination of caring and modesty, of vision and energy and
iron determination,” Mr. Clinton told those gathered, adding: “I love
this guy, and you should, too.”

But what had been a string of successes was about to hit a speed bump.

By
June 2009, a little over a year after the star-studded evening in
Toronto, Uranium One’s stock was in free-fall, down 40 percent. Mr.
Dzhakishev, the head of Kazatomprom, had just been arrested on charges
that he illegally sold uranium deposits to foreign companies, including
at least some of those won by Mr. Giustra’s UrAsia and now owned by
Uranium One.

Publicly,
the company tried to reassure shareholders. Its chief executive, Jean
Nortier, issued a confident statement calling the situation a “complete
misunderstanding.” He also publicly contradicted Mr. Giustra’s
contention that the uranium mining deal had not required government
blessing. “When you do a transaction in Kazakhstan, you need the
government’s approval,” he said, adding that UrAsia had indeed received
that approval.

But
privately, Uranium One officials were worried they could lose their
joint mining ventures. American diplomatic cables made public by
WikiLeaks also reflect concerns that Mr. Dzhakishev’s arrest was part of
a Russian power play for control of Kazakh uranium assets.

At
the time, Russia was already eying a stake in Uranium One, Rosatom
company documents show. Rosatom officials say they were seeking to
acquire mines around the world because Russia lacks sufficient domestic
reserves to meet its own industry needs.

It
was against this backdrop that the Vancouver-based Uranium One pressed
the American Embassy in Kazakhstan, as well as Canadian diplomats, to
take up its cause with Kazakh officials, according to the American
cables.

“We
want more than a statement to the press,” Paul Clarke, a Uranium One
executive vice president, told the embassy’s energy officer on June 10,
the officer reported in a cable. “That is simply chitchat.” What the
company needed, Mr. Clarke said, was official written confirmation that
the licenses were still valid.

The
American Embassy ultimately reported to the secretary of state, Mrs.
Clinton.

Though the Clarke cable was copied to her, it was given wide
circulation, and it is unclear if she would have read it; the Clinton
campaign did not address questions about the cable.

What
is clear is that the embassy acted, with the cables showing that the
unnamed energy officer met with Kazakh officials to discuss the issue on
June 10 and 11.

Three
days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom completed a deal for
17 percent of Uranium One. And within a year, the Russian government
would substantially up the ante, with a generous offer to shareholders
that would give it a 51 percent controlling stake. But first, Uranium
One had to get the American government to sign off on the deal.

When
a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent
stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a
secretive review process in Washington, where officials raised concerns
primarily about the mine’s proximity to a military installation, but
also about the potential for minerals at the site, including uranium, to
come under Chinese control. The officials killed the deal.

Such
is the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States. The committee comprises some of the most powerful members of the
cabinet, including the attorney general, the secretaries of the
Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the
secretary of state. They are charged with reviewing any deal that could
result in foreign control of an American business or asset deemed
important to national security.

The national security issue at stake in the Uranium One deal was not primarily about nuclear weapons
proliferation; the United States and Russia had for years cooperated on
that front, with Russia sending enriched fuel from decommissioned
warheads to be used in American nuclear power plants in return for raw
uranium. Instead, it concerned American dependence on foreign uranium
sources. While the United States gets one-fifth of its electrical power
from nuclear plants, it produces only around 20 percent of the uranium
it needs, and most plants have only 18 to 36 months of reserves,
according to Marin Katusa, author of “The Colder War: How the Global
Energy Trade Slipped From America’s Grasp.”

“The
Russians are easily winning the uranium war, and nobody’s talking about
it,” said Mr. Katusa, who explores the implications of the Uranium One
deal in his book. “It’s not just a domestic issue but a foreign policy
issue, too.”

When
ARMZ, an arm of Rosatom, took its first 17 percent stake in Uranium One
in 2009, the two parties signed an agreement, found in securities
filings, to seek the foreign investment committee’s review. But it was
the 2010 deal, giving the Russians a controlling 51 percent stake, that
set off alarm bells. Four members of the House of Representatives signed
a letter expressing concern. Two more began pushing legislation to kill
the deal.

Senator
John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, where Uranium One’s largest
American operation was, wrote to President Obama, saying the deal “would
give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s
uranium production capacity.”

Uranium
One’s shareholders were also alarmed, and were “afraid of Rosatom as a
Russian state giant,” Sergei Novikov, a company spokesman, recalled in
an interview. He said Rosatom’s chief, Mr. Kiriyenko, sought to reassure
Uranium One investors, promising that Rosatom would not break up the
company and would keep the same management, including Mr. Telfer, the
chairman. Another Rosatom official said publicly that it did not intend
to increase its investment beyond 51 percent, and that it envisioned
keeping Uranium One a public company.

American
nuclear officials, too, seemed eager to assuage fears. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission wrote to Senator Barrasso assuring him that
American uranium would be preserved for domestic use, regardless of who
owned it.

“In
order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or
ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license
authorizing the export of uranium for use reactor fuel,” the letter
said.

Still,
the ultimate authority to approve or reject the Russian acquisition
rested with the cabinet officials on the foreign investment committee,
including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions of
dollars in donations from people associated with Uranium One.

Before
Mrs. Clinton could assume her post as secretary of state, the White
House demanded that she sign a memorandum of understanding placing
limits on her husband’s foundation’s activities. To avoid the perception
of conflicts of interest, beyond the ban on foreign government
donations, the foundation was required to publicly disclose all
contributors.

To
judge from those disclosures — which list the contributions in ranges
rather than precise amounts — the only Uranium One official to give to
the Clinton Foundation was Mr. Telfer, the chairman, and the amount was
relatively small: no more than $250,000, and that was in 2007, before
talk of a Rosatom deal began percolating.

But
a review of tax records in Canada, where Mr. Telfer has a family
charity called the Fernwood Foundation, shows that he donated millions
of dollars more, during and after the critical time when the foreign
investment committee was reviewing his deal with the Russians. With the
Russians offering a special dividend, shareholders like Mr. Telfer stood
to profit.

His
donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported
in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help
it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians
sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011; and $500,000 in
2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his
business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr.
or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to
support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I
have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

The
Clinton campaign left it to the foundation to reply to questions about
the Fernwood donations; the foundation did not provide a response.

Mr.
Telfer’s undisclosed donations came in addition to between $1.3 million
and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a
constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company
that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the
Kazakhstan mines. Without those assets, the Russians would have had no
interest in the deal: “It wasn’t the goal to buy the Wyoming mines. The
goal was to acquire the Kazakh assets, which are very good,” Mr.
Novikov, the Rosatom spokesman, said in an interview.

Amid
this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to
speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for
a majority stake in Uranium One.

The
$500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance
Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has
invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime
minister, to speak at its annual investor conference.

Renaissance
Capital analysts talked up Uranium One’s stock, assigning it a “buy”
rating and saying in a July 2010 research report that it was “the best
play” in the uranium markets. In addition, Renaissance Capital turned up
that same year as a major donor, along with Mr. Telfer and Mr. Giustra,
to a small medical charity in Colorado run by a friend of Mr.
Giustra’s. In a newsletter to supporters, the friend credited Mr.
Giustra with helping get donations from “businesses around the world.”

A
Renaissance Capital representative would not comment on the genesis of
Mr. Clinton’s speech to an audience that included leading Russian
officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal. According
to a Russian government news service, Mr. Putin personally thanked Mr.
Clinton for speaking.

A person with knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising
operation, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about it, said that
for many people, the hope is that money will in fact buy influence:
“Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?” But
whether it actually does is another question. And in this case, there
were broader geopolitical pressures that likely came into play as the
United States considered whether to approve the Rosatom-Uranium One
deal...

Hillary Clinton's
family's charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a
Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from
governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in
case of other errors.The foundation and its list of
donors have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Republican
critics say the foundation makes Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2016, vulnerable to undue influence. Her
campaign team calls these claims "absurd conspiracy theories."

The
charities' errors generally take the form of under-reporting or
over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign
governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government
donations entirely when reporting revenue, the charities confirmed to
Reuters.

The errors, which have not
been previously reported, appear on the form 990s that all non-profit
organizations must file annually with the Internal Revenue Service to
maintain their tax-exempt status. A charity must show copies of the
forms to anyone who wants to see them to understand how the charity
raises and spends money.

The
unsettled numbers on the tax returns are not evidence of wrongdoing but
tend to undermine the 990s role as a form of public accountability,
experts in charity law and transparency advocates told Reuters.

"If
those numbers keep changing - well, actually, we spent this on this,
not that on that - it really defeats the purpose," said Bill Allison, a
senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a government transparency
advocacy group.

For three years in a
row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that
it received zero in funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic
fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars in foreign government
contributions reported in preceding years.

Those
entries were errors, according to the foundation: several foreign
governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the
foundation's work on climate change and economic development through
this three-year period. Those governments were identified on the
foundation's annually updated donor list, along with broad indications
of how much each had cumulatively given since they began donating."We
are prioritizing an external review to ensure the accuracy of the 990s
from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and expect to refile when the review is
completed," Craig Minassian, a foundation spokesman, said in an email.

The
decision to review the returns was made last month following inquiries
from Reuters, and the foundation has not ruled out extending the review
to tax returns extending back 15 or so years.

Minassian
declined to comment on why the foundation had not included the
necessary break-down of government funding in its 990 forms. He said it
was rare to find an organization as transparent as the foundation.

"No
charity is required to disclose their donors," he said. "However, we
voluntarily disclose our more than 300,000 donors and post our audited
financial statements on our website along with the 990s for anyone to
see."

Separately, the Clinton
Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the foundation's flagship program, is
refiling its form 990s for at least two years, 2012 and 2013, CHAI
spokeswoman Maura Daley said, describing the incorrect government grant
break-outs for those two years as typographical errors.

CHAI,
which is best known for providing cheaper drugs for tens of thousands
of people with HIV around the world, began filing separate tax returns
in 2010, and has previously refiled at least once both its 2010 and 2011
form 990s. For both those years, CHAI said its initial filings had
over-reported government grants by more than $100 million.

Some
experts in charity law and taxes said it was not remarkable for a
charity to refile an erroneous return once in a while, but for a large,
global charity to refile three or four years in a row was highly
unusual.

"I've never seen
amendment activity like that," said Bruce Hopkins, a Kansas City lawyer
who has specialized in charity law for more than four decades, referring
to the CHAI filings.

Clinton
stepped down from the foundation's board of directors this month but her
husband, Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, remain
directors. The foundation said
last week after Hillary Clinton became a candidate that it would
continue to accept funding from foreign governments, but only from six
countries that are already supporting ongoing projects. CHAI will also
continue to receive foreign government funding, again with additional
restrictions.

Nick Merrill, Clinton's spokesman, has declined to answer inquiries about the foundation and CHAI.

Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by
companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation
he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington
Post analysis of public records and foundation data.

The amount,
about one-quarter of Clinton’s overall speaking income between 2001 and
2013, demonstrates how closely intertwined Bill and Hillary Clinton’s
charitable work has become with their growing personal wealth.

The
Clintons’ relationships with major funders present an unusual political
challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now that she has formally entered
the presidential race, the family may face political pressure and some
legal requirements to provide further details of their personal finances
and those of the foundation, giving voters a clearer view of the global
network of patrons that have supported the Clintons and their work over
the past 15 years.

The multiple avenues through which the Clintons and their causes have
accepted financial support have provided a variety of ways for wealthy
interests in the United States and abroad to build friendly relations
with a potential future president. The flow of money also gives
political opponents an opportunity to argue that Hillary Clinton would
face potential conflicts of interest should she win the White House.
Though she did not begin delivering paid speeches or join the foundation
until 2013, upon ending her tenure as secretary of state, the proceeds
from her husband’s work benefited them both.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton declined to comment on the overlap
between speech sponsors and foundation donors, saying only that the
former president’s speaking schedule has been largely consistent since
he left the White House.
Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the
foundation, said it makes sense that supporters of the foundation would
also be eager to hear from the former president.

“It’s not
surprising that organizations who believe strongly in the Clinton
Foundation’s mission and are impressed by its results are genuinely
interested in President Clinton’s perspective,” Min­assian said. “The
president often says the foundation is his life today, and he welcomes
any opportunity to educate people about it and encourage more people to
work together to solve some of the most critical global challenges we
all face.”

The
Post analysis shows that, among the approximately 420 organizations
that paid Bill Clinton to speak during those years, 67 were also
foundation donors that each gave the charity at least $10,000.

Many of those funders were major financial institutions that are
viewed suspiciously by liberals whom Clinton has been courting as she
seeks to secure the Democratic nomination — and avoid a vigorous primary
challenge from the populist left.

Four major financial firms —
Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup —
collectively have given between $2.75 million and $11.5 million to the
charity, which is now called the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Foundation. Between 2001 and 2013, their combined speech payments to
Bill Clinton came to more than $3 million.

The Post
analysis also revealed aspects of Bill Clinton’s paid speaking career
during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not
clear from her public filings.

Those included:

●The role
played by dozens of companies and organizations, some of them associated
with foreign governments or with interests before the U.S. government,
in serving as secondary hosts for a number of the speeches. In her
filings, Hillary Clinton typically disclosed only the primary sponsor of
each speech.
One such “sub-sponsor” was Boeing, a major government contractor whose interests Hillary Clinton promoted in her official duties at the State Department.

●Four
speeches delivered by Bill Clinton did not appear in Hillary Clinton’s
filings. One such speech was a 2012 address to an annual meeting of the
Carlyle Group, a politically connected private-equity firm.

A
spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said the former president at times
spoke to benefit the foundation, which would not trigger a disclosure
requirement for Hillary Clinton. None of the four speech sponsors are
listed as foundation donors. The spokesman said the proceeds were
classified as non-tax-deductible revenue — not donations.

The
Clintons’ finances have already become a political flash point with the
much-anticipated release next month of a new book examining the
foundation and the family’s personal wealth. The Clinton campaign has
dismissed “Clinton Cash,” written by conservative author Peter Schweizer, as a partisan attack.

The
Post received a copy of the manuscript after signing a non-disclosure
agreement with publisher HarperCollins. This article is based on
reporting and documents collected independently from Schweizer’s book.

The
foundation itself has also emerged as an issue. In recent weeks, some
Democrats have expressed anxiety about the foundation’s receipt of
millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments while Hillary
Clinton was secretary of state. Records show that the foundation
accepted contributions from seven foreign governments during that time,
including one donation that the foundation has acknowledged violated an
ethics agreement with the Obama administration designed to limit new
foreign-government donors.

Clinton aides have said the foundation goes beyond legal requirements
and industry standards in its transparency. Its Web site lists donors
and their contribution amounts, expressed in ranges.

It is not
unusual for former presidents to boost their income through an active
schedule of paid lectures; records show Bill Clinton has often shared
the stage with former president George W. Bush or delivered speeches in
front of groups that had previously hosted Bush or his father, former
president George H.W. Bush.
Clinton has been in particular demand
as a speaker because of his renowned oratory and growing popularity in
post-presiden­tial life, partly based on the widely respected work of
the foundation. Speech organizers, which have included universities,
charities and major lecture series, report that the former president is a
major draw and that he often boosts attendance for annual events.

What
sets the Clintons apart is the vast reach of their donor network and
the extent to which they have tapped it for the broad range of their
personal, political and charitable work.

The Post’s analysis,
based on foundation disclosures, State Department documents, financial
filings and other records, shows that the lines between Clinton’s paid
speeches and his work for the foundation often blurred as he traveled
the world promoting the charity and reaping millions in payments.
Technology
companies Microsoft and Cisco Systems, for instance, donated at least
$1 million each to the foundation. The two companies paid Bill Clinton a
total of $1.02 million in speaking fees for a series of lectures.

In
September 2012, the Italian fitness equipment company Technogym paid
Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in the northern Italian city of
Cesena at a conference devoted to “creating a better and more
sustainable world through people’s health,” according to financial
disclosures and documents Bill Clinton’s office submitted to the State
Department.

Technogym, which has also given between $25,000 and
$50,000 to the foundation, reported in a news release that the speech
came about in part because of the foundation’s work fighting childhood
obesity.

Clinton spent much of his remarks discussing the work of
the foundation to improve global health and comparing it to efforts by
the company and its affiliated charity to promote the same ideas. “So
I’m very interested in all these things that the Wellness Foundation and
that this conference and that Technogym does — because we are trying to
do this,” Clinton said, according to a YouTube video of his remarks.

Technogym did not respond to a request for comment.

The
intermingling of foundation and paid work was also apparent earlier
that year when Bill Clinton addressed an advertising festival in Cannes,
France.

Grupo ABC, a major Brazilian advertising company, paid
Bill Clinton $450,000 for the June 2012 appearance. Foundation records
show that the firm has given the charity between $1.5 million and
$6 million.

Excerpts from the event posted on YouTube show that
Clinton was introduced with a video devoted to the work of the charity.
“I personally believe that if the American people give you the honor of
serving them, you should keep doing it after you leave office,” Clinton
says in the video.

State Department records show
that Bill Clinton gave a speech and participated in a moderated
question-and-answer session in Cannes for 1,000 advertising employees
and then attended a reception for 75 at a luxury hotel.

Grupo ABC
spokesman Sergio Malbergier said the company has worked with a series
of global charities and nongovernmental organizations as part of a
belief in being a “socially responsible organization.” He said the
company has supported the Clinton Foundation “because of the importance
and effectiveness of its work.”
Bill Clinton was
invited as a keynote speaker to help celebrate the company’s 10th
anniversary, Malbergier said, because company leaders have found his
vision “a great source of inspiration.”

A Clinton Foundation
official said organizations that pay for the former president to speak
are often interested in the work of the charity and request that Clinton
address it in his remarks.

The Post analysis also found other previously unreported aspects of Bill Clinton’s speaking career.

While
Hillary Clinton named the sponsoring organization for each of her
husband’s speaking engagements, separate documents show that Bill
Clinton’s office listed 97 additional sub-sponsors that had been
proposed to help with these speaking events.

Bill Clinton
disclosed the additional information as part of a voluntary ethics
process undertaken when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. He
agreed to seek State Department approval of his paid speaking
engagements to avoid conflicts of interest for his wife.

Hillary
Clinton was not obligated to disclose the sub-sponsors in her annual
filings. The State Department’s correspondence with Bill Clinton’s
office provides the only indication of the additional interests that
helped support the former president’s paid speaking career.

In
2010, for instance, Hillary Clinton disclosed that her husband had been
paid $250,000 to address the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

But
Bill Clinton’s office alerted the State Department that other sponsors
for the event were proposed to include Etisalat, a large Middle Eastern
telecommunications company whose majority owner is the government of the
United Arab Emirates.

Likewise, in 2012, Hillary Clinton’s
disclosures show, Bill Clinton was paid $250,000 for a Boston speech to
the Global Business Travel Association.
But the documents filed
by Bill Clinton’s office show that a proposed sub-sponsor was the
aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing. During a 2009 trip to Russia,
Hillary Clinton made a personal pitch for a state-owned airline to buy
Boeing jets.
Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, said the
company has sponsored the major travel event for several years,
regardless of its invited speakers.

Some sub-sponsors also were foundation donors, including Boeing, which has given more than $1 million to the charity.

In
addition, the Post analysis found that Bill Clinton delivered some paid
speeches during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that
were not publicly disclosed.

By law, Cabinet members and
lawmakers must disclose speeches for which their spouses were paid at
least $200. And the foundation has voluntarily updated its donor list on
its Web site each year since 2008.

But four speeches were not disclosed in either fashion.

A
spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said that the former president
“complied with disclosure requirements in every case” and that any
speech fee not disclosed as personal income by Hillary Clinton went to
the foundation.

But he said those fees were not tax deductible
for the sponsoring organization and thus were not considered donations
to the charity. He said they were included in the revenue figure
provided in the foundation’s tax filings.
The examples The Post found were:

●A
speech delivered in October 2011 in front of 9,000 at the University of
Rochester’s Meliora Weekend, the school’s annual reunion and parents
weekend. University officials confirmed that he delivered the speech for
a fee, which they would not disclose.

●An appearance at the Minneapolis Heart Institute’s annual gala, also in October 2011. Event organizers said Clinton was supposed to attend in person but appeared
via video link after a snowstorm confined him to Washington. They said a
$25,000 fee was paid for his appearance at the event that, according to
State Department records, was also sponsored by the Land O’Lakes dairy
company.
“We wanted a speaker who could speak
personally about heart disease and heart treatment,” said Minneapolis
Heart Institute spokeswoman Melissa Hanson. “In addition, we wanted
someone with first-class credibility. President Clinton was a natural
fit.”

●A September 2012 question-and-answer session at the annual
investors meeting of the politically connected private-equity company
the Carlyle Group. A spokesman would not comment on Bill Clinton’s fee.
According to Politico, Hillary Clinton was paid to appear at the same
event a year later, after she stepped down as secretary of state.

●Bill
Clinton’s participation as the guest of honor at a dinner in Limerick,
Ireland, in November 2012 at which scholarships were awarded to Irish
students. A spokeswoman for the organizing group confirmed Clinton
traveled to Ireland to take part in the dinner.

Friday, February 13, 2015

In order to help us all get through the latest bout of global warming/nuclear winter/climate change/alien abduction/yeti infestation/global flattening, here are some smoking hot redheads, yet another reason why it is stupid for mohammedans to try to kill us or enslave us.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Britain voted on Tuesday to become the first country to allow a
"three-parent" IVF technique which doctors say will prevent some
inherited incurable diseases but which critics see as a step towards
creating designer babies.

The treatment is known as "three-parent" in vitro fertilisation (IVF)
because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have
DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor.

It
is designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases, incurable
conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500
children worldwide.
After an emotionally
charged 90-minute debate that some lawmakers criticised as being too
short for such a serious matter, parliament voted 382 to 128 in favour
of the technique, called mitochondrial donation.

The
vote paves the way for a medical world first for Britain -- which along
with the United States has been at the forefront of scientific research
on the treatments -- but one that is fiercely disputed by some
religious groups and other critics.
The
process involves intervening in the fertilisation process to remove
mitochondria, which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside
cells, and which, if faulty, can cause inherited conditions such as
fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and
muscular dystrophy.

Mitochondrial DNA is
separate from DNA found in the cell nucleus and does not affect human
characteristics such as hair or eye colour, appearance or personality
traits.

"I wouldn't stand here and defend the
concept of designer babies -- choosing the colour of the eyes and all
the rest of it. This is about purely dealing with those terrible,
terrible illnesses," opposition Labour lawmaker Andrew Miller, chair of
parliament's science and technology committee, told the debate.

Said the fool from the middle of the slippery slope.

International
charities, advocacy groups and scientists had urged Britain to pass
laws to allow the treatment, saying it brought a "first glimmer of hope"
for some families of having a baby who could live without suffering.

"We
have finally reached a milestone in giving women an invaluable choice,
the choice to become a mother without fear of passing on a lifetime
under the shadow of mitochondrial disease to their child," Robert
Meadowcroft, chief executive of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, said
following the vote.

In
an open letter to lawmakers, 11 international campaign groups,
including the U.S. United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, described
the condition as "unimaginably cruel".

"It
strips our children of the skills they have learned, inflicts pain that
cannot be managed and tires their organs one by one until their little
bodies cannot go on any more," they wrote.

Lawmakers
were given a free vote on the issue, and Prime Minister David Cameron's
spokesman said the British leader had voted to support it, adding it
was not "about playing God".

Said the dumbass politician with the god complex.

"He has a
particular sympathy with those parents whose children are born with very
serious illnesses, that in nearly all cases end their lives
prematurely," the spokesman said, referring to Cameron's son Ivan who
suffered from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy and died aged six in
2009.

Proposed new laws allowing the
treatments to be carried out in Britain still have to be approved by the
upper house, which commentators expect to endorse parliament's support.

Gillian
Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility clinic and a
reproductive ethicist, urged the scientists developing the techniques to
continue "to educate and reassure those who continue to have
anxieties".

The Bishops Conference of England
and Wales said the Church opposed the destruction of human embryos as
part of the process and hoped treatments for mitochondrial disease could
be found.

"The human embryo is a new human
life with potential; it should be respected and protected from the
moment of conception and not used as disposable material," Bishop John
Sherrington said in a statement.

Other
critics say the technique will lead to the creation of genetically
modified "designer babies", with Conservative lawmaker Fiona Bruce
saying it would amount to letting "the genie out of the bottle".

"Where
will it lead? The answer has to be that we stop here. The answer has to
be that we say this is a red line in our country, as in every other
country in the world, that we will not cross," she said during the
debate.

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.